CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER FIVE

The guests sat with friends and family, as expected. Jamie's relatives and the locals favored the tables in the dining pavilion, open to the air but somewhat sheltered from the evening breezes. The artists sat at the tables on the lawn. It was less than three weeks from the longest day of the year, and the sky was still bright. Everyone would enjoy a beautiful sunset at the end of the meal.

The servers brought the first course, the New England clam chowder, and the guests dug in, many expressing their appreciation. The air had grown cooler, and there was a definite breeze. The warm, creamy, briny, flavorful soup was more than welcome.

I was slightly surprised that, when the man in the blue blazer finally sat down, it was at the table that held Jamie's parents and closest family. Dan, the groomsman, was on one side of him, Jamie's aunt and her husband on the other. Across from them were Jamie's parents and Dan's mom and dad, who, in the complicated geometry of the family, was also Jamie's oldest brother.

At least the question of who the stranger belonged to had been answered. He wouldn't have sat with the groom's parents if he wasn't connected to them. The man was chatting away with the family.

Jamie and Zoey did not sit down to eat but moved together from table to table, greeting guests they hadn't seen yet and chatting as well as the noise from many conversations allowed. I traveled from table to table too, answering questions about the Clambake and the wedding the next day, opening the bottles of champagne on each table as I went.

As the servers cleared away the clam-chowder bowls, the best man, Pete Howland, rose from his seat on the porch of the dining pavilion. He was five years older than Jamie, round-faced and snub-nosed. Short as a police officer could be, and chubby, he was the Jeff to Jamie's Mutt, the Hardy to Jamie's Laurel. Despite his stature, he managed to command everyone's attention.

"If you had told me, on Jamie's first day on the Busman's Harbor police, I'd be standing up as the best man at his wedding, I, well, I would have been skeptical. He was a skinny kid, greener than green, who had a college degree in criminal justice—always a useless commodity—and the strangest notions about how to drive a patrol car I'd ever seen." Pete pantomimed Jamie at the wheel, waving to pedestrians and cars to go ahead of him. "After you, sir. No, no, after you. After you." Pete paused for a beat, a master of comedic timing. "If you can't use a police car to barrel through traffic, I ask you, what is it good for?"

Most of the guests obligingly tittered at this.

"But over the last eight years, Jamie has become my partner and my best friend. He's saved my life twice, and there's no one I would rather have my back."

He turned toward Zoey, who stood next to Jamie looking a tiny bit apprehensive and puzzled, as though the best man's speech wasn't written down in her meticulous script for how the evening would go. Someone at the table next to where the happy couple stood had handed each a glass of champagne.

"When I met Zoey, I was similarly skeptical. What is it with Jamie and these smaht, ahty girls ‘from away' he's so attracted to?" Pete pronounced it with an exaggerated Maine accent, and people did laugh. "But then I got to know her. She is one of the kindest, dearest, most genuine people I've ever met. And she loves my partner."

Pete raised his glass. "And so, Zoey, I relinquish my partner to be your partner. To have and to hold. Forever."

"Here, here." The guests raised their glasses and drank.

Jamie raised his glass to Pete, mouthing, "Thank you." They were both a little wet around the eyeballs.

Zoey raised her glass to her lips, faked taking a drink, and then set it on the table. Still pacing herself, I saw.

I stepped forward to tell the first tables to go to the clambake fire to pick up their meals, but didn't get that far because Dan's father rose. As he started in on reminiscences of Jamie as a pain-in-the-neck little brother, Sonny glared at me from the clambake fire and opened his mouth. I didn't need to hear what he was saying to know what it was. "If this is your idea of moving these people in and out of here quickly before the storm, you are doing a terrible job." I nodded and glared back. I was more than aware.

Mr. Dawes's speech ended to a smattering of applause and another toast. Again, Zoey picked up the glass, faked a sip, and set it down.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Constance Marshall, at a table full of artists, poised to stand. I ran over quickly and practically tackled her. To cover up, I sent her table to the clambake fire to pick up their meals and then continued calling the artists' tables on the lawn. I'd intended to send the group with Jamie's parents first, but the best-laid plans, et cetera, et cetera.

I sped past my family's table, where Tom sat with Mom, Captain George, the Snuggs, and Gus and Mrs. Gus. Tom caught my arm. "Can I help?"

I shook my head. "No, but thanks."

I saw Zoey headed to the restroom. Figuring my maid-of-honor job now took precedence, I grabbed one of our most experienced servers and asked her to continue calling the tables, and then followed Zoey into the bathroom.

* * *

"You're pregnant!" I stage-whispered as I entered the ladies' room. I hoped my tone indicated celebration, not accusation. As I'd jogged toward the restroom, all sorts of observations had swirled together in my head. The fact that Zoey was avoiding certain glazes in the studio. The rush to move up the date of the wedding. When was the last time I'd seen her drink anything alcoholic? She'd even rejected the Snuggs' deadly punch at her shower.

"Sssshhhh!" A hissing shush came from under the door of the middle stall. Then a louder and more cautious, "Is anybody else in here?"

I checked under the two other doors, something I should have done at the start. "Nope," I reported.

By then, Zoey was out of the stall and headed to the sink to wash her hands. Her eyes were bright, and her mouth was turned up in a smile. "Yes," she said, applying soap and rubbing her hands together. "Yes." She rinsed her hands and then she was in my arms.

"Are you happy?" I hardly needed to ask.

"So happy." She squeezed me tighter. "I love you."

"I love you, too." I let her go, and we both wiped away nearly shed tears.

"No one can know," she cautioned.

I felt my eyebrow go up, questioning. She couldn't be worried about people judging her. Her own mother had been unmarried. And she and Jamie were adults well into their thirties and fully committed to one another. Not like the last wedding when I'd been the maid of honor. Livvie, just out of high school, had married Sonny in front of the fireplace at my parents' house, Livvie looking like she'd swallowed a watermelon. They were two terrified, but defiant, teenagers. They weren't getting married to please either set of parents. In fact, my mom and dad and Sonny's widowed father had argued against it. But Livvie and Sonny's stubborn insistence had won the day. They wanted to be wed, and before the baby was born. They were legally old enough. There was nothing to do but give in. No one in the room would have ever guessed that they'd still be together today.

I was wondering idly if I was destined only to be maid of honor to expectant brides when Zoey answered the question I hadn't asked.

"Because this weekend is about the wedding," she said. "We planned and dreamed of it for so long. There'll be plenty of time to celebrate the baby later."

"Of course," I agreed. "When?"

The smile lit up her face again. "Early November. I can't wait." The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. "I never had a family," she said. Something I knew well. "My mom was completely alone, and then she was gone. Now I have all this, this huge family." She waved her hand toward the lawn and dining pavilion, full of chattering people: Jamie's big family, Zoey's found family of artists. The local friends, yet another sort of family. She cupped her belly with her hand. "Since Mom died, I haven't known a single biological relation," she said, her voice low. "Soon I'll know one. It makes me so happy."

I hugged her once more, and we turned together, pushed the door of the ladies' room open, and walked back toward the cacophony of happy voices.

"Head up, shoulders back, smile," I told her. But I didn't need to. She was already standing straight and proud.